Toolkit

Story: Becta fails the open source test

Posted by: Andrew Meredith (Thursday 9 March 2006, 9:12 AM)

Having been a delegate at the last BECTA conference I can only agree that the view of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) within BECTA is very mixed. I spoke to some who agreed wholeheartedly that there was a very firm place for FOSS within schools. Others, almost viciously, dismissed the thought as some kind of hippy dream.

It should be noted that when you pay for software, you provide the vendors with the necessary to oil the wheels for their products within the corridors of power. I cannot comment on whether this has actually happened, just that some within the official government agencies seem to be almost religiously opposed to FOSS.